Aggressive cat terrorizing a very calm one (need advice please!)

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puddleslime
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Aggressive cat terrorizing a very calm one (need advice please!)

Post by puddleslime »

We introduced our cats about nine months ago and are having some issues. One of the cats is respectful of boundaries, calm, but anxious in the face of aggression. She’ll hiss at most when she’s cornered but otherwise is very non aggressive and content to just exist around the other cat.

The other cat is definitely more aggressive, actively pursuing the first cat when she leaves rooms, when she can hear her in one of the separate litter boxes, etc.

We’ve tried many things including slowly introducing them through closed doors, encouragement with treats, etc, and while we’ve gotten to to point where the aggressive cat no longer attacks the first cat on sight, she’ll still follow her, get angry, and is altogether still pretty aggressive, with the first cat continuing to generally leave her alone and mind her own business.

The first cat doesn’t seem afraid of the second cat, although gives her consideration and a wide berth most of the time.

Most advice I’ve seen regarding this is that the aggressive cat has too much energy and to play with her. Except the aggressive cat is almost 15 years old, spends her whole day sleeping, and genuinely has zero interest in toys, regardless of the sort we try with her.

Does anyone have any advice as to what we should do in this situation? We don’t need them to be best friends or anything, but we’d like to at least have some level of tolerance from our aggressive cat.
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Mollycat
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Re: Aggressive cat terrorizing a very calm one (need advice please!)

Post by Mollycat »

If you have allowed one cat to become aggressive towards the other one, you've gone too fast, it's as simple as that.

The purpose of the introduction process is that both cats should be completely comfortable with each small step for several days before you bring on the next small step, and if one or other reacts badly to the next small step you go back to the previous step.

Once they have already been allowed to be in the same room with one attacking and the other cornered and hissing defensively, I would say you should probably go right back to the beginning. Wherever they end up in the process where you can't make the next small step, that will be the best you're ever going to get out of them, accept it and keep it just like that.

Otherwise, every time you're allowing them to be in the same space even if there is no physical attack, you are building up more and more explosive trouble. Separate them and start again from scratch.
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